^[1] I’d love to have a pet at home, but it’s not allowed in the apartment I live in (or in most rental apartments in Tokyo). But today I discovered something almost as good: An AM/PM near my office that has an Appoint’s ^[2] kiosk with access to the So-net PetLiveTV ^[3] webcam site.

So, if you live in Tokyo, you can now walk into many AM/PM stores, head over to the Appoint’s kiosk, and watch (via a webcam) cute little animals cavorting about. As long as your idea of cute little animals is ferrets, meerkats, chameleons, and hamsters, and as long as you are satisfied with watching them cavort about in cages — instead of, say, their natural habitat.

Better yet: If you have an AU (KDDI) mobile phone, you can (for a small fee) view PetLive from your mobile ^[4].